President Obama's week ahead: A Brit, a secret, healthcare and Ohio

About to begin his seventh week in office, President Barack Obama plans more moves in his public relations offensive on both the economy and healthcare.

Spoiler Alert: He doesn't think either are going too well.

Today, Obama's published schedule calls for a bunch of White House meetings, in the interests of transparency all closed to the press. So they could be playing Risk in there, for all we know.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Obama will speak at the Transportation Department, and he might mention the economy and the nation's infrastructure, which he thinks still needs work and gobs more money from generations unborn. The president will also meet in the Oval Office with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He's British, not surprisingly, so we'll see if he takes his suit coat off in there too.

Wednesday is apparently a secret; we haven't heard about that day yet.

But Thursday, Obama will hold a healthcare reform forum in the White House to hear from a narrow range of unhappy people, including congressional members who have a really good health insurance program, about how broken the nation's healthcare system is. So if you're healthy and happy with your care from dedicated medical professionals driving BMWs, don't bother trying to get in.

On Friday, the president will travel to Columbus, Ohio, to talk about how his $787.2-billion economic stimulus spending bill has already turned the nation's economy around. Just kidding. The White House has not announced what he'll do where there.

But presumably it has something to do with getting the economy going again and showing energetic movement trying to sell his trillions of dollars in spending while cutting taxes, fighting a war and halving the 10-digit federal deficit. The fact that his presence will dominate the news for an entire day in yet another key political state and could nudge its congressional delegation to support him some more is an obvious coincidence.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Downtown Columbus, Ohio. Credit: DiscoverOhio.com

Comments

[david amodt]

on wednesday's he's going to announce the US purchase of AIG and Citibank. On Friday he'll announce he's sponsoring the bailout package for the Octuplet mother. Please...

[AN]

I remember when Bush was in office the democrats criticized him with anger and hate constantly and said we need to get rid of Bush as president. Now they think their savior, Barack Obama is beyond any criticism. Obama is flying around to cities trying to force his bad stimulus bills on the american people. His policies lowers our standard of living and helps make some people lazy. I have never heard of a president asking for so much money. I HOPE HE FAILS.

[hsr0601]

The hard-earned stimulus package is founded on the pledge over the policy of transparency, no earmarks through line by line review, which is the most effective way to turn deficit into surplus, moreover, to fight the vested interests, the top priority need to be fight against the same old failed earmarks, I think.
Mr.Obama should not give in to the temptation to play by the establishment's rules. He's obligated to push hard for change; that's what voters elected him to do.

[Dave]

Another journalist making about a quarter of a million dollars a year criticizing Obama? What a surprise.

It may also surprise you that MOST Americans are either UNDERinsured, meaning that a catatastorphic illness will mean surefire bankruptcy, loss of the family home, etc [which happened to 1.5 million families last year alone]. So just 'cause you have your gold-plated health plan doesn't mean that we don't care about having our basic medical needs taken care of once and for all. WE DO.

[Jay Beck]

When a good journalist gets this snarky, he should check how long it's been since he had a day or a week off. Yeah, LAT may be on its own window ledge, but you still have to save your sanity.

[chelsea]

I really don't think that people see the real issue is that America if in a depression (not a a "recession" because congress is too scarred to say that it's a depression) we need to stop thinking about people "personal lifes, and start making jobs, and worry about paying debts, instead of worry about the average joe, I think that we can deal for now... until the bigger problem is handeled